This exercise helps you get clear on your business journey and build a personal brand based on your story. It’s for solopreneurs, coaches, speakers and creative professionals who are struggling to tell their story and want to add personality to their messaging.

Great for:

•  Authors and speakers who want to open with their story to engage their audience
•  Entrepreneurs who are running an online business and need to build warmth, personality and connection
•  Wellness practitioners who have a personal journey that’s been pivotal to their business
•  Mindful business owners who find it hard to speak about themselves at networking events

Telling your story allows you to own who you are, step into your power and ignite a spark in the hearts and minds of those who follow you. After all, your story is the reason you’re here, so it makes sense to share it.

But… It’s common to feel blocked when it comes to telling your story. Why? Because your story can create all sorts of insecurities around how much to reveal, the impact it’ll have and how interesting is it (and hence how interesting are you?).

However, when you nail your story and speak from the heart it creates a powerful synergy with your audience, giving you the confidence to build a charismatic brand.

Steps

Telling your story with clarity and confidence means working on the narrative of you, where you came from, how you got here and what you’ve learned on the way. Luckily, there are 5 simple steps to pulling this together.

And it all begins with a mountain…

The mountain exercise guides your storytelling ? it helps map your journey, build tension and allows you to share your transformation.

For the mountain exercise I want you to write in the past tense, looking back over your life to explain how you got to this point. Being too close to your own story is what makes it such a challenge to write. It helps if you imagine you are a character in this story and describe yourself in the 3rd person (using she/he and her/him, not I and me).
5 simple steps to climb your story mountain:

1. Orientation
This part of your story is set in the past. Think back to a time before you were in the business you are in today. Now introduce yourself (the character) and orientate us to what life was like at this time.

a. Who is this character?
b. What does life look like for them?
c. What are their hopes and dreams?

My example…Introducing Lisa, a primary school teacher who was thriving on the pressure of a busy classroom, juggling family life with travel and professional development. She’d gone into teaching to find a job for life, after many career changes from nurse to recruitment agent and cake decorator! She was hoping that the classroom would be the answer to her dreams of settling down in a career 먹튀검증커뮤니티.

2. Build-up
This part of your story is exploring the build-up to change. It’s where you share the first niggles of discontent with your life (personal or professional). It’s here you set the scene for the problem and tell us when you noticed things changing. This may be an internal shift or an external event.

a. When was it clear that change was afoot?
b. Was there a catalyst that forced awareness to your discontent?
c. What resistance was there to change? What fears?

My example…Lisa started to feel restless in the classroom, but she buried that feeling deep down. She was afraid of letting her family down if she couldn’t settle in this career. The catalyst came when a stranger at a BBQ asked her what she wanted for herself and she had no answer.

3. Big decision
The heart of your story is built around the crossroads, where living with the problem becomes too much and you face a big decision to make it right. That big decision maybe resigning from your job, leaving an unhappy marriage or starting a side hustle. The decision isn’t always to start a business, but it may have been the catalyst that set you on that path.

What decision or choice was made?
How did that change things?
Who was a mentor or influencer?

My example…Lisa left teaching to travel and rediscovered her passion for writing. As her trip came to an end she was at a crossroads, go back to teaching or begin again? She decided to take a leap of faith and making writing her future, and started her business.

4. Resolution
Here’s where you start to wrap things up. You’re going to bring the story up to present time and show us how it all turned out. This should include what business you started, whether that’s changed direction and how things have evolved for you.

a. How did it work out?
b. What fresh challenges did it bring?
c. What surprises were there along the way?

My example…Lisa is now 3 years into her entrepreneurial life and it’s been full of surprises. Although she thought she’d left her nursing and teaching careers behind, it turned out she’s drawn on these skills more than ever. Her natural empathy, intuitive style and incisive questioning helps her clients gain clarity and confidence in their business messaging.

5. Transformation
When you reflect on how far you’ve come, what learnings have you taken away? Tell us about the transformation you’ve experienced on a personal and professional level.

a. What are the learnings?
b. How has this shaped or changed you?
c. What do you stand for today?
d. What is true for you, now and forever?

My example…Lisa has learned to know herself better, to look for the answers within and to trust her judgment. She stands for gentle leadership, mindful communication and personal growth. She’s more confident to step up and share her message with the world, having seen her ability to create transformational shifts for others. What is true for Lisa, now and always, is that knowing yourself is the starting point for any journey.

Tips for applying this exercise
When starting the mountain exercise stay curious, playful and creative to help you gently unwrap the story you want to tell. The exercise is best approached as a “fun little thing to do with a glass of wine”, rather than a “must-do target” for the week!

Here’s some of the ways I get into the playful, curious zone:

•  Sit on the floor, laptop on my legs
•  Write by hand on butcher’s paper using colored pens
•  Go to a cafe, put headphones in and listen to my favorite tunes

It’s completely normal for you to feel this is messy and disjointed to begin with. Don’t judge your writing, this is the raw material that you’ll shape and polish later on.

Tips for coaches
Clients often look for the BIG moments that define their journey, but it’s the small stuff that will help them tell their story. This may be a random question, a feeling or an anxiety or a realization. These small moments always precede the big stuff and as a coach drawing this out is a key to making the mountain exercise a transformational experience.